Few games make me sit back and just think 'wow', Eastshade [Steam, Official Site] is certainly one of those times as the trailer makes it looks incredible. Check it out:

About the game:

You are a traveling painter, exploring the island of Eastshade. Capture the world on canvas using your artist’s easel. Talk to the inhabitants to learn about their lives. Make friends and help those in need. Discover mysteries and uncover secrets about the land. Surmount natural impasses to reach forgotten places. Experience how your actions impact the world around you.

Features:

Interact with the locals through dynamic conversations with discoverable topics and branching dialogue.

Compose paintings anywhere in the world and offer them to characters to gain items, knowledge, and unlock secrets.

Acquire materials and schematics to surmount obstacles.

Actions and dialogue decisions affect future interactions and outcomes as you meet new characters.

It's from the same developer who made Leaving Lyndow, which did previously have Linux support that was removed due to issues. Concerned about this, I emailed the developer, who said this about the situation (published with their approval):

Hi Liam!

Leaving Lyndow is actually still playable on Linux, and a few folks reported to me it works fine on their distro. I only removed the listing from the store front, to discourage future sales on Linux. Since I was getting a lot of bugs I started to feel uncomfortable with the quality of the port. Once I pulled the Linux listing, I fixed most of the remaining bugs to the best of my ability, and pushed an update. The one big bug that remains that I never fixed was the ability to save, but given that Leaving Lyndow is meant to be played in a sitting, the port is still quite serviceable. Nobody who bought the game was abandoned.

The source of most of my bugs in the first place were external APIs I have since deprecated and replaced. Additionally, given that the revenues of Eastshade will be higher due to its higher price point, I'll be able to afford a bit more time on the Linux port. Finally, I didn't really understand the nature of a Linux port when I shipped Leaving Lyndow. I thought that any bug with any distro under the sun was my problem. The community has let me know that I only need to officially support one distro, and any bugs with other distros I can let the community sort. I will only be officially supporting SteamOS.

I hope that clears things up!

Danny

I've spoken to them a little more and they might end up testing just on Ubuntu, but whatever they decide it sounds like they're at least a bit clearer on how to support Linux. It's a common mistake, thinking you need to support 99x distributions, when really if you target the main two you're usually good to go.

I look forward to giving Eastshade a run, as I really was impressed with Leaving Lyndow.

For those of you addicted to Dota 2, you might want to take a look at the new Dota Plus monthly subscription Valve just unveiled to replace the Battle Pass system.

The Battle Pass system was interesting, but it did have the drawback of only being available around specific tournaments. Now that's not the case at all, since this is an always active on-going system of extras for subscribers. They're essentially turning Dota 2 into a two tier game, one that's free and this. All the basics of the game do remain the same of course, but paying for this sub gives you a few nifty extras that die-hard fans might want.

You get access to Hero Levelling, earning you special badges and access to the new Hero Chat Wheel responses. You also have access to a special pool of challenges tailored to each hero, completing them goes towards your overall hero level. You also get to earn and spend shards (a new in-game currency) with a selection of Plus-exclusive items.

There's also the new Plus Assistant, which will help you decide which items to buy, give you ability suggestions and hero suggestions all of which are updated in real-time based on what's going on in the game. On top of that, it will also give you a new Death Summary screen to see exactly what happened in great detail like incoming damage, stuns, and other disabling effects that led to their feeding of the enemy.

Subscribing will also give you Seasonal Terrain, so you can see snow during the Winter and lovely orange leaves in the Autumn. Oh—you also get free access to enter the weekly Battle Cup, whereas it's $0.99 each time for people who don't subscribe. So if you planned to enter them most the time, subbing would probably work out better anyway.

This evolution of the system sounds reasonable, the price isn't bad either. It's not like Valve need the money, but hopefully a bunch of it will go directly to the tournaments. It costs $3.99 a month, with discounts for paying over a longer period.

Streets of Rogue [Steam, Official Site], the insanely funny rogue-lite RPG continues to expand and this latest update lays the foundation for some fun times in future.

Firefighters will actually come and attempt to put out all the fire you create from blowing everything up. The developer said they plan to also give them a "water cannon bionic arm" instead of a Fire Extinguishers, which sounds mighty amusing. It seems in future you might be able to pick them as a playable character too, goodie! If you want to see them, you have to get out of the Slums as they're currently only in the Industrial, Downtown and Uptown zones. With their inclusion, you might also now come across a Fire Station as well.

I tried to get a video of the Firefighters in action, many—many takes later after lots of death and destruction, including two levels where I spawned into an ongoing riot, I found one!

Thanks to how many runs I had to do just to see them, I also came across the Shrink Ray and boy was that a lot of fun. Also notice the tiny man walking past at the end, one of my other victims!

There's also another new level now available in section 5-3, part of the Uptown section of the game. As the game is in Early Access, not all the levels are actually in there. Even so, there's quite a lot of content already.

An Alien might also be hiding somewhere, one that's not yet finished, but it's in there—somewhere…see the full update notes here for everything includes in this rather great update.

I say this constantly, but it's an epic game that we've had a serious amount of fun with here—go get it. It's available on Steam or direct from the Official Site (Steam key).

Strategy adventure game 'Pathway' [Steam, Official Site] is the second game from Robotality to come to Linux, the first was their pretty good strategy game Halfway (I'm noticing a theme with their naming here…).

I spoke with the developer over email, who confirmed Linux support. I was so excited about it I asked before checking the trailer—turns out it's also mentioned in the brand new trailer directly—awesome! So great to see platform parity.

I think it looks really interesting, especially so as this is the most amount of gameplay they've shown on it so far. I absolutely adore the artwork and the gameplay looks great and quite varied too. They say each playthrough will generate a new campaign on a procedural map, with every location giving you some tough choices to make.

They also announced they've teamed up with Chucklefish once again to publish it.

They're also doing a mystery hat deal, where you pay £2.29 and you end up with a random game. Not that such a thing makes sense for Linux gamers, since it may give you Windows-only games. You can see the full list here and the GOG sale ends March 19th.

You can also hop over to our Sales Page to see all sales from GOG and more!

Need more 2D RPGs? How about one with an open-world to explore and a dark story? Unleashed [Official Site, Kickstarter] looks quite good and it's currently on Kickstarter with a Linux demo.They're seeking €10K and they've managed to just hit over their goal with only a few days left to go, so they're currently scraping by.

The fact that they already have a Linux demo (and they emailed us directly about this) is a damn good sign of their commitment to a Linux version, that might make it worth your support. The current demo can be found here, that link may go out of date though so keep that in mind, find the latest on their Kickstarter.

They told me it's inspired by both Pokemon and Final Fantasy, with a dark universe featuring mature undertones. In terms of the open world exploration, the entire world is available to explore from the start without any quest-related restrictions, however, each area will have a average level, so you will need to be equipped enough to explore certain areas safely.

Check out the trailer:

Features:

Use your soul's parts to summon up to 10 creatures called Achivaras; each one either represents a sin or a virtue!

Semi turn-based battles: summon up to 3 Achivaras at a time in strategic 3v3 battles

Open world: explore the open world without any limitation, even at the beginning of the game

Farming: every map has randomly spawning resources, and almost every item can be cut down, mined, or grabbed

Crafting: use collected and bought materials to craft other items, which can be used or sold

Housing: repair houses in any of the 10 cities to make it your own! You'll be able to customize your home and place useful items in it

Fancy exploring a peculiar Museum while reading short stories? a Museum of Dubious Splendors [Steam, itch.io] is a free game that has Linux support.

The game is full of short stories by Mir UmarHassan, a Gujarati poet whose works they said have been "notoriously difficult" to get the translations correct, mainly due to the mixed use of Urdu and Hindi. You get to read these short stories while you walk around some sort of Museum. It's completely weird, yet somehow engrossing at the same time.

The game actually arrived on Linux quite some time ago in December last year, but we completely missed it. With the Steam release earlier this month, I managed to randomly come across it. For those of you after something calming, this is probably going to be a pretty good one to look at.

The developer, Studio Oleomingus, also just recently announced Under a Porcelain Sun, an experimental narrative-driven, first person adventure game that promises some wild visuals and it looks like something I'm not going to forget in a hurry. It's due out this summer with Linux support as well!

For now, you can find a Museum of Dubious Splendors on Steam and itch.io. If you try it out, do tell us what you think in the comments.

For those of you who like the smaller experimental games, Exit84 [itch.io] is an interesting idea. It's a frustrating typing-platformer game, where you can only move by typing what's on the screen. It's free, so if you need something to test yourself it's a nice little game.

A single second of your attention drifting somewhere else will be fatal, miss-typing will also be fatal. Get your hands on the keyboard and be ready to EXIT—or die.

I've spent a little time with it and it sure is difficult, but the idea behind it is really quite clever. The levels aren't random, so you can easily learn them and you know what's going to come next once you've failed a few times. Knowing what you have to type next doesn't make it easy, as your timing and typing needs to be impeccable.

Another huge update to the open-world MMO Albion Online [Official Site] is now live, with a bunch of new features to make it more interesting.

Note: Their servers will be back up around 11:30AM UTC, they're currently deploying the update and it's taking slightly longer than they expected.

I've written about the update a few times now as I do think it should make the game feel a bit more alive. Albion did have a bit of a problem with the world feeling a little flat. This new update adds in: Fishing, Roaming Mobs and Luxury Goods making exploration a bit more interesting, a new Expedition, more performance improvements to their servers to reduce lag and give a better experience overall, new Hellgates for PvP, Guild Quality-of-Life Improvements and more.

Here's the update trailer:

I'm actually pretty tempted to jump back in, there's a lot that's been added since the release. It's great to have such an MMO on Linux, lets' hope it has a long life and they keep adding in more to make it interesting.

All Our Asias [Itch, Steam] is the most recent offering from Sean Han Tani, the developer of Anodyne. The game is a mix of narrative exploration (so-called “walking simulators”) and visual novel styles, although it does not offer branching paths or multiple endings.

The first thing that hits you playing the game is the surreal, low-fi style reminiscent of old Amiga demos. It’s a refreshing change from retro games that model themselves after old Nintendo systems, and the DIY electronics look of the UI is appealing. Most characters are either presented as stubby little drones, as your character is, or else white humanoid silhouettes.

The environments are interesting to move through, and the ability to raise or lower the camera angle is useful for taking in the view. Quick transitions from one area to the next keep the experience feeling fresh, and I found myself looking forward to see what new vista would open up. In some cases the change was dramatic and in most what I found on the other side was unexpected.

The story itself is briskly told with some surprising twists. As linear as it is, the narrative will keep you on your toes and the lessons learned at the end are anything but what you expect going in.You play as Yuito, a 31-year-old Japanese-American curious to learn about the father who abandoned him as a child. Taking advantage of a risky visualization procedure, he dives into the now-dying man’s “Memory World” in an effort to discover who he was. But as his actions destabilize the world around him, he finds his priorities begin to change.

The game isn’t without faults. The writing is awkward at times, particularly early on, and Yuito’s insistence on diving deeper despite the risks isn’t well explained. Indeed, he isn’t really all that likeable for much of the story, coming off as arrogant and impatient, although by the mid-way point he is a bit more sympathetic. Some of the other characters are easier to take and more transparent about their motivations.

Controls are a bit strange. C and X on the keyboard are used for confirm/interact and jump, respectively, while Q and E change the camera angle. Movement is via the arrow keys. Fortunately, the keys can be remapped if you prefer the classic WASD setup.

The game installs and runs runs perfectly on my system, and requires little in the line of graphics or CPU. It’s a perfect game for low-end systems, and it took me a bit over an hour to get through.

Overall, All Our Asias is an intriguing narrative experience despite its shortcomings. The soundtrack (Bandcamp) is excellent and available DRM-free, and is also available as part of a “fan pack” on Steam that also includes a 150+ page art and commentary book. As a free game, you can’t beat the price.